tsuki

@Preety_India Happy for you!

I do not believe that we must consciously seek suffering in order to grow, but we can't turn away from what we're going through right now. Even though suffering is the price, it is also free so it's not like anything is paid.

It is not bad to be nice to others if you can first be nice to yourself. Because niceness is often a charade that masks the inability to take one's own needs seriously. You cannot be in a successful relationship with another person if you are not able to recognize what they want and provide it in sustainable ways. That recognition of needs is first and foremost present with regards to your own self. Generally speaking, lack of consciousness that has a lot of potential causes. There are systemic ways in which we take each other for granted and that may come from childhood trauma, bad parenting and unhelpful thought patterns. There are also temporary ways in which we're toxic and they arise from current circumstances, such as stress, lack of proper sleep, or bad nutrition. Of course, there are also relationships that went past the point of no return where you secretly hate the person, but have to be in relationship with him/her, and you just want to harm them. Generally speaking, this answer is very much related to the previous one. I would advise against this kind of thinking when entering relationships. What you want the most is to be yourself, instead of aping someone else's standards of behavior. Never hesitate to go to couples therapy if you're experiencing prolonged relationship problems that you fail to fix despite genuine efforts on both parts.

Yes. The meaning of life is Love, which is what you feel when you are aligned with Truth. There is no decision present. Feelings, by themselves, are either aligned or misaligned with You, the truth. That is resistance, or lack thereof. Resistance is created when you reject, or split, yourself from the Truth. That is when conceptual "I" is created. You are looking at this whole thing as an "I" asking questions from your limited POV and having expectations about the snake that really is a rope. @Nahm may be the right person to answer your questions.

LOVE IT! Not gonna lie, I'm pretty envious that he has a reasonable shot at recruiting like that! Given recent forum discussions about pickup, I hope that it's not a research project about female needs and survival ?

@Cosmin_Visan You are asking these questions from a contracted position, for the sole purpose of disproving the answers. This will not get you anywhere closer to what you are looking for. Unless, of course, you are looking for an argument.

@Cosmin_Visan Are you complaining about threads where people confuse absolute truth with relative truth? When absolute truth is being discussed, "consciousness is all there is" is the right answer. It brings no value to the table because it is too paradoxical for the mind to grasp and because thinking about it gets you nowhere closer to experiencing it. Experience is the point. However, when relative truth is being discussed, it is very easy to spot a posturing non-dual smartass. Bridging non-dual insights and everyday life is a whole trip in of itself.

time exists as a concept.

You and your friend are the same reality, the same experience, of the infinite mind. The person is a finite mind within the infinite mind, but the source of consciousness is one. There are things that the finite mind receives and there are things that the finite mind creates, but there is no tree apart from experience. The infinite mind looks through your eyes at its own beauty.

Time to get off the forum. See ya.

I mean that the post itself is from Orange POV, but the title is written from Green POV. I called that misleading. Orange would title it: "Escape wage slavery by breaking the system!" or something similar. Orange would not give it a title that calls it toxic explicitly. Orange has to pretend (even to itself) that it's the hottest shit out there, 100% legit.

Again, healthy competitive vs toxic competitive. @7thLetter's post is misleading because "Toxic Orange Entrepreneurs on the 9-5 Job Lifestyle" is a judgement from Green POV. Orange would not call that toxic.

@electroBeam Except for the part where you look down on the 90% of human population.

I recently picked up painting with acrylic. I use it specifically to let go of the default todo-list operation mode as well as releasing emotions.

Summarizing spirituality as "ego is bad" is only good at the very beginning, when you are helplessly unconscious and you need something to get started. A more nuanced approximation is "ego is falsehood", or "ego is unconsciousness", or "ego is denial". That is why I prefer to call what is conventionally called "ego" as "the false self". If you have needs and admit to that, then that is the truth. Denying that fact by believing spiritual dogma is denial. I am not saying that it is impossible to not have any needs like pop-spirituality is saying. What I am saying though that it is irrelevant as long as you don't actually experience it. In this sense, living in accordance with truth by consciously fulfilling your needs is more spiritual than pretending otherwise. In this pretending, denial, lies what is conventionally called ego, or the false self.

The part about finding the right therapist is true and I have been very fortunate to find one. We had some misunderstandings and fell into a big trap, but were able to navigate out of it thanks to a life crysis she helped me through. Thanks to covid lockdowns, more and more therapists will be open to conducting sessions via skype if you are too anxious to go in person. This will potentially be a safe way to do a vibe check, but I will tell you outright that meeting in person is much more powerful and preferred. A good therapist will not only listen to what you are saying, but also connect with you emotionally and read your body language to understand you better. This is very difficult over skype. If you want some pointers about finding a good therapist, then the most important characteristic is that he or she will care deeply about you and about who you are. When making this judgement, it is not all that important what they say. What is important is how they listen. Are they really taking in what you are saying and whether or not they are trying to block, or "trim" you. First few sessions are the most important here, there should be a lot of listening, conscious attention and gathering information on their part. Helping you get comfortable and safe is also a good sign. Without the ability to listen on the therapists' part, therapy is impossible. Ideally, you should feel safe to say anything, even the stuff that you have difficulty admitting to your parents, partners, or yourself. What is also important is to look for posturing and defensiveness on their part. Even when you disagree, they should not defend their position like their life depends on it. Them challenging you to take a perspective is fine in later stages of therapy, but first few sessions are about getting to know you. Having read all this, it is also important to know that therapy is not a game of judgement and if you are too focused on finding the right therapist, then you will miss the therapy itself. First and foremost, you are getting there to open up, not to find the right person. If you focus too much on what I told you, then you will be too defensive. I would advise you to tell the therapist outright that you feel like you have to find the right one and that you have been informed on how to do it. You can then talk about your expectations and needs. My wife is using SSRI antidepressants for half a year and our experience has been largely positive. The first two weeks were an adjustment period where she experienced mood swings, but after that she became much more stable overall. Prior to that, she was having lots of mini-panic attacks regarding her health as well as lots of negative self-talk and they subsided to a large extent. Right now she's approaching the moment where she's supposed to get off them and she's experiencing a different set of side-effects. I suspect that her body knows that meds are not needed anymore and will get better once she's off. She was saying that she was feeling more like herself when she first started taking them and side-effects wore off. Once you start taking meds, DO NOT STOP TAKING THEM ON YOUR OWN ACCORD, EVEN IF YOU HAVE A HEALTH-RELATED PANIC ATTACK. ALWAYS CONTACT YOUR DOCTOR FIRST AND ASK HOW TO DO IT AND WHETHER YOU SHOULD DO IT. This is no joke, you can fuck yourself up really badly otherwise. Like, fucked up for life badly, so take this seriously. I will not tell you what may happen to not freak you out, neither will doctors, but do not underestimate this. Once you decide to take them, do not skip doses and take them exactly as prescribed. It is important to note here that you will have to find the right doctor that knows what he's doing. We knew that it's the right person because he started the treatment after having a long discussion about the causes of her depression that was informed by the results of her psychotherapy. He also politely asked me to leave the room and spoke to my wife directly. A lot of characteristics of a good psychiatrist will be similar to psychologists that I described above. I suggest that you only go to psychiatrist if psychotherapy has little effect and the psychologist advises it. This is how it happened for my wife. You should also feel safe to call your psychiatrist when you feel like it. You have to feel that you are being taken care of and their openness is very important here.

That is only apparent to highly self-actualized individuals

@Pernani You are in your relationship because you want your needs met. If you lose sight of that and start to believe that your partner is merely a provider, then you get attached. I don't mean to imply that you will not bond with your partner and grieve her loss when she's dead. Conscious relationship with your needs prevents toxicity and abuse. When you create space for expressing desires, you automatically are able to communicate better. You don't lose sight of what your partner really wants and are able to address that.

@mandyjw God, your sex life has to be boring given your elaborate explanations. Can't you speak like a normal person about normal stuff? All I hear is: I don't need sex. Well, that's fine if it's true but it's besides the point.

@Etherial Cat @mandyjw I think that the confusion that we're having arises from something akin to pre/post fallacy that happens during development. It is the distinction that @Etherial Cat insists on making, between being "Godlike" and "edgy", which corresponds to "actual" masculine and "pretended" masculine. The pretended masculine ends up abusive because it is a facade that covers up incompetence. It is what @Etherial Cat calls confidence vs ego, or what I would rather call insecurity that comes from protecting one's childish fantasy. But that discussion is off-topic with respect to what I was asking, like @Gesundheit noticed. I want to understand the unconscious sexual drive which may, or may not be what @mandyjw asserts here: If that were really the case, then sexual drive would drop off when maturity increases. That, however is not the case because as consciousness increases, more and more aspects of oneself are integrated. In fact, psychological maturity as described by Jung comes from synthesis of the unconscious and the conscious that give rise to the Self. What @Etherial Cat calls "Godhood" of a man may very well be the projection of her Animus that can be owned and experienced consciously as the experience of God. I remember vividly that when I fell in love with my wife, it felt like a genuine awakening. The interesting part though is whether this unconscious sexual drive can actually be understood correctly and used as guidance in genuine growth. Most accusations towards PUA are that it is fake, which many not necessarily be the case if done correctly. These accusations reek of jealousy and general dismissal of something that does not fit into the accuser's worldview.

@Preety_India While this story is believable in of itself, I find it improbable that you are actually experiencing it. It reeks of contamination by masculine fantasy and is filled with objective reasons for subjective experience. I am asking about you, specifically, not a generic woman. This may be a difficult question because of your history with that man. Remember a specific situation, like a date, when you went crazy for a guy. Savor the feelings and see what they were expressing. Was it really historically based, or was it more personal?

So you are looking for encouragement to feel safe. I suppose that this safety is not reflected upon, but you follow the energy of the situation? A man "throws caution to the wind" when he is careless, grounded in his skill, or what @Etherial Cat calls "Godlike". This corresponds with how mastery is evolving. From posturing, through apprenticeship, to unconscious competence. Does this correspond with what you feel to be sexy, or am I fantasizing?

That is a deep question, but I do have an answer. I do not end where my conscious experience does. If I am attracted to women and women expect something of me, then there is an unconscious drive for me to become that. I want to know what that thing is so that I can be my relative self more fully. Having a genuine description from woman's POV would be invaluable. Within the domain of survival, usefulness is the ultimate objective. As long as I don't confuse that with the absolute, pursuing that is fine. And that is the description of a genuine, mature, relationship. There is no conflict between that, and trying to understand attraction. On the contrary.

The one that makes you, personally, tick. @Preety_India's observation that the answers are naked is accurate.

@Preety_India See? This is what I'm talking about. There is a reason why "edgy confidence is a turn on". I know that you are not thinking about it, you are not consciously choosing that this guy is sexy and that guy is not, but your mind is making that judgement in response to signs that you are picking up. What I am asking is: what is the promise that the edgy guy is making that this "turn on" is expressing? What do you assume that this edginess speaks about this guy? Why is confidence sexy? What will a confident guy do for you? Take care of you? Give you some good time? Take you on an adventure? Be your father? Complete you? It's like @Etherial Cat says - it is an idealization, a fantasy, that this person is something. What is that thing? That is what the PUA folks capitalize on. This is not exploitative or wrong if the promise is delivered, but if it's weaponized then it is harmful. I am wondering whether it can really be delivered because if it happens unconsciously, then there is really no guarantee of that.